"Old"

I took my ladies out for margaritas in thanks for everything they did in moving our office this week.  The new office looks good although there are still a lot of piles.  I also don't know why one computer monitor doesn't work, but all that can wait until next week.  Margaritas were important.

When I told them the word for the week is "old", M said a doctor told her that if you're going to have a health problem, it'll show up between the ages of 50-60.  If nothing crops up, you're golden.  So far so good?  She's in her 70s and skateboarded a computer stand down the hallway.  I hope I'm doing that well when I'm her age.  No, I wish I was doing as well as her now.

I have creaky knees and sore feet from a lot of walking, climbing, hefting, and shoving this week.  It reminds me of my 30s when I felt old, fat, and depressed from an unhappy marriage and divorce.

I sat at a picnic table in the park with Betty, watching a flock of girls run across a field.  Betty sighed.  She was old enough to be my mother and said she'd never run like that again.  She used to love running and Scottish dancing.  She even took a trip to Scotland to dance.  Her loss of ability hit me in a powerful way.

Added dogwood flowers

Not long afterwards, my dalmatian ran across a field.  I thought "Why not?" and ran with her.  I wasn't sure if I could do it any more, but we made it across the very big field.  I wasn't even that winded on the other side.  We ran some more.  I played with her.  I pushed thoughts about breaking my ankle in a rabbit hole out of my surface thoughts.  We waded in the river for a while, and ran around the field some more.

Something major shifted in my thoughts that day.  I was sorry Betty couldn't run, but I still could.  I didn't have to limit myself, and Betty was thrilled for me when I told her about it.  She laughed and clapped when I danced with her son around the living room.

I put myself on a diet and got out and lived.  I looked and felt better in my 40s than in my 30s.  I danced a lot.  Once in a while I run in the backyard just to keep proving to myself that I still can, and I remember Betty and thank her for teaching me a valuable life lesson.

Painting my floor vividly reminds me that deep knee bends should happen more than once a decade.  The floor has gotten farther away than it used to be and I'm unwilling to say this is the last project like this that I'll be able to do because I'm getting too old.  It's time to take my physical life in hand again.

I have all the leaves painted!  Woo hoo!!!  This is the least exciting part visually because it's repetitious and basically just the background, but I've thoroughly enjoyed doing it.  I look forward to coming home from work so I can paint and think about things.  I've been sorting out things that I've had shelved in my brain and seeing whether or not I need to throw things away, recycle, or rearrange them in another box.

I've got ideas for the next phase, and I'm excited at the prospect of a 3-day Labor Day weekend which I can fill with dragonflies and flowers.

BTW, the floor is obviously a compass which points north.  The dragonfly is a correction pointing to big water (Lake Erie).

"Metamorphosis"

I was sitting in my sunroom once when a very large dragonfly zipped up my yard, up the back steps, did a 90º turn, flew sideways through the almost shut sliding glass door, and committed suicide on my forehead, smack on my "third eye".  Its lifeless body fell neatly on my lap and didn't show any signs of damage from contact with my hard head.

I don't know how other people feel about moments like this, but I felt my world shifting.  Having spent so much time in the woods and river, I know dragonflies don't make a habit of committing suicide, and I seldom have dragonflies in my back yard.  I carefully picked up the dragonfly and thanked it for sending me a divine message.

Maybe that sounds odd to you, and I'm pretty sure dragonfly suicides aren't described in any of the major religious texts, but I notice it when animals don't behave right, or show up where they shouldn't be, or any other kind of strangeness in the natural world.

At the time of my life when the dragonfly died, I was separated from my husband, pending divorce.  I was thinking about my future and my disappointments when the dragonfly came into my life.  I looked at the lifeless body and knew the marriage was over.  New things were coming into my life.  This was the way it had to be.

When I was on my recent trip in Baltimore, a dragonfly danced around me and I thought "Oh crud!"  (Okay, maybe something a little stronger than that?)  I could blow it off and just say it was defending territory, but I knew better.  It kept flying in my face, "Look at me!" and I said "I see you.  No need to commit suicide on my head."  It flew back to its territory and did regular dragonfly things while I contemplated new acid in my stomach.

My dad told me whimsical stories about dragonflies being fairies, and there are traditions where dragonflies are angels in disguise.  If you want to put this in a more rational way, when I'm thinking of life changing events, I notice dragonflies.  Maybe they don't do anything different at all (though I don't believe that), but I notice them because of whatever's going on inside of me.  Maybe my heavy thinking makes my breathing or sweat different and there is a logical explanation, but even that's still a message to myself.  Something's changing.  I hate change.

I wasn't in a good marriage and needed out.  Ultimately, I'm a lot better off divorced than staying put because it was familiar and what I knew.  I suppose I took vacation recently because I already felt changes coming and needed time away to think about different things.  I don't know how to explain feeling change coming.  I just do.  Let's call it female intuition.  Time will tell if it works out plus or minus, but as much as I dislike change it is an opportunity for metamorphosis.  Seeing the dragonfly makes me feel like whatever's coming is inevitable, so it's up to me to make the most of it.

Sometimes I doodle dragonflies.  I think they're often as pretty as butterflies, and they go through just as an amazing metamorphosis from egg to nymph to adult.  Do you ever feel like you get dragonfly messages or messages from another animal?